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Preparation Phase for the International Polar Year 2007-08
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- SCAR Position on IPY at an Open Meeting of the IPY Planning Group in Paris on March 31, 2004
- ICSU Memo
Status of IPY planning
1. The year 2007 marks the 125th anniversary of the First International Polar Year (1882/83), the 75th anniversary of the Second Polar Year (1932/33) and the 50th anniversary of the International Geophysical Year (1957/58). These Polar Years and IGY all contributed significantly to new insights into global processes and stimulated intense international collaboration.
2. Spurred by the interests of the European Polar Board and US Polar Research Board, the ICSU Executive Board decided in February 2003 to establish an IPY Planning Group for a 4th International Polar Year. The role of the Planning Group is to formulate a concept for an IPY 2007/8 and to develop a mechanism for the design, development, guidance and oversight of an IPY. The Chair of the Planning Group is the Director of the British Antarctic Survey, Dr. Chris Rapley. ICSU intends that the IPY 2007/8 must address exciting science, and that the programme must be truly participatory, with strong involvement from nations other than Europe and the United States. The Executive Board charged the Planning Group to provide a draft plan for an IPY 2007/8 for the ICSU Executive Board meeting in February 2004, and then develop a final plan for presentation to the ICSU 28th General Assembly in 2005. Along the way, the Planning Group should play a key role in facilitating creating a coherent structure to guide all those nations and scientists wishing to participate in the IPY.
3. The ICSU Executive Board approved the February 2004 interim report of the Planning Group and decided to establish an International Polar Year 2007-2008, subsequent to confirmation by the 28th General Assembly of ICSU. The ICSU Executive Board further tasked the Planning Group that, by October 2004, it should have developed a full Science Plan and have arranged to replace itself with an International Implementation Group to take over responsibility for the further development of IPY 2007-08.
4. The Fourteenth World Meteorological Congress considered the concept of the IPY (2007-2008) in May 2003. WMO Resolution 34(Cg-XIV) approved the idea of holding the IPY, and requested the 56th WMO Executive Council (a) to examine the preparation and holding of the IPY, in collaboration with other relevant international organizations, and (b) to establish an ad hoc working body to develop a plan of action for IPY preparation and to coordinate its implementation. As follow up actions the Secretary-General of WMO established in the WMO Secretariat an internal Steering Committee on the IPY, with a Task Team that developed an outline of programme activities to be implemented as contributions of WMO Programmes to the IPY.
5. Close collaboration has been established between WMO and ICSU on this matter. Recognising the interest of the WMO in supporting an IPY, the ICSU Executive Board of February 2004 proposed that the two organizations should jointly sponsor IPY 2007-2008. The details of this joint activity are being discussed. WMO already have representation on the ICSU Planning Group to provide necessary communication. There is room for the involvement of other potential partners.
6. An International Meeting on Cooperation for the IPY was organized in AARI, St Petersburg, Russian Federation, from 22 to 23 January 2004 by Roshydromet and the Academy of Science, with the support of the European Commission. About forty participants took part in the meeting, including representatives of WMO, the ICSU Planning Group on the IPY, European and US Polar Boards, Arctic Council, IASC, the EC, and Directors of Polar Centres of Chile, Finland, Japan, Sweden and other countries. There were about 20 presentations on various topics related to scientific and operational activities in polar regions that contained proposals for an IPY programme. The meeting approved a Joint Statement suggesting priority areas for the IPY and considered that for coordination and support of joint actions it would be necessary to develop a coordination plan based on a wide range of inputs. The meeting requested WMO and ICSU, in close cooperation with other relevant organizations, to undertake steps in this direction.
7. The Planning Group is (April 2004) working on a summary of proposals for the IPY programme received from the scientific community (300+ proposals) that would form a basis for development of a draft of a Preliminary IPY Outline Science Plan, which was discussed, with WMO participation, at the third meeting of the ICSU Planning Group on IPY (Paris, 1-3 April 2004). It is planned that the draft will be presented for comments to participants of Arctic Science Week (Reykjavik, April 2004), to the European Geophysical Union (EGU) meeting (Nice, spring 2004), American GU and Canadian GU meeting (Montreal, May 2004), Arctic Social Science Conference (Alaska, 2004) and SCAR Open Science Conference (Bremen, July 2004) and finalized at a forthcoming meeting of the ICSU PG with WMO representatives (Paris, September 2004). The timing provides the opportunity for comment by interested parties.
Nature of the IPY
8. The IPY will be an intense international campaign of coordinated polar observations and analysis, with researchers from many nations working together to gain holistic insights into planetary processes, targeted at exploring and increasing our understanding of the poles and their roles in the global system. The IPY should address compelling science issues; enable science programmes that otherwise might not occur; attract and develop the next generation of polar scientists; and engage the public. The IPY Planning Group envisages focused research activities under three overarching themes: (i) exploration of new frontiers; (ii) understanding change at the poles; and (iii) decoding polar processes. IOC has the opportunity to provide input on the proposed themes, to suggest specific research activities, and to review proposals.
9. The general principles of what the IPY should consist of are as follows:
- Intense programme of internationally co-ordinated polar observations and analysis which would not otherwise occur
- Address compelling science issues
- Lay foundation for longer-term commitments
- Build on and enhance existing programmes & initiatives including enabling technology
- Attract and develop next generation of polar scientists
- Engage the media and public
10. The key characteristics of the IPY will be:
- Visionary and inspiring
- Challenging but achievable
- Include cooperative observations by many nations, thus adding value ("greater than the sum of the parts.")
- Cover both the Arctic and Antarctic, and linkages between the regions.
- Multidisciplinary, including human dimensions
- Push frontiers and therefore accept some risk of failure
11. The IPY should begin in 2007/8 to celebrate the anniversary of the historic IPYs and the IGY. Its initial duration should be approximately 2 years to allow time for the possibility of summer and winter field campaigns in both polar regions. However, observing networks and longer term activities begun during IPY 2007/8 should be maintained over the long-term as necessary to achieve their goals, preferably for the order of a decade.
12. The scientific importance of the polar regions can be summarised as follows:
- The polar regions are integral components of the Earth System - linked to global climate system, sea level, biogeochemical cycles, marine ecosystems.
- The unique facets of the polar environments such as (sea ice, snow cover and major ice sheets, are variable over wide range of timescales and have exhibited non-linear behaviour.
- The polar regions respond to, amplify and drive changes elsewhere in Earth system.
- The interplay of the ocean, atmosphere and the cryosphere in the polar regions makes this region key in producing "rapid" climatic change (change on decadal or human timescales).
- The polar marine benthic environment and the extensive sub-glacial environment has been a relatively isolated and stable environment over long time period and hence is particularly vulnerable to change.
- Polar ice, sediments and rocks represent a unique repository of information on past states of the planet, which provide crucial insights into the past and future.
- Polar regions are home to unique organisms adapted to the demanding environment, offering incredible opportunities to understand evolution and other biological and ecological questions, especially given the tools of modern bioscience.
13. The motivation for an International Polar Year is based firmly on the understanding that the poles are an integral component of the Earth's complex systems. It will require a multi-disciplinary perspective which is broader scientifically and more integrative than the IGY, which focused exclusively on the geosciences. The International Polar Year will be designed to make significant strides toward understanding the role the Poles play in the global systems, exploring the unknown, and recovering key climatic records.
14. The concept for the International Polar Year recognises that although many well designed programs are underway and planned for the Polar regions by individual nations, a coordinated international effort will give special emphasis and facilitate a real leap forward in our understanding of the Poles, past, present, and future. The science community is truly global and international. Previous International efforts, both IGY and earlier IPYs, produced benchmark datasets which have been used time and again as baseline observation to detect change. Technology today provides the potential for the IPY 2007/8 to build the infrastructure to deliver long term data sets - the infrastructure which will detect future change as it occurs - but doing so would required coordinated, international effort. For this reason The International Polar Year 2007/8 is envisioned as an intense programme of internationally co-ordinated polar observations and analysis which would not otherwise occur.
15. It is thus expected that successful implementation of the IPY and the comprehensive data sets and scientific results obtained as a result of the above activities will ensure further development of monitoring of environment and forecasting systems, in particular for prediction of severe weather phenomena. It should also provide a valuable contribution to the IPCC assessment of climate change and its impact in polar regions, extend our knowledge on specific physical processes in polar oceans and their impact on the global ocean circulation and climate, and serve as a basis for constructive recommendations to governmental agencies and the socio-economical sector.
The SCAR position on the IPY was put in the following way at an Open Meeting of the IPY Planning Group in Paris on March 31, 2004:
What is the Significance of the IPY for SCAR?
The IPY offers SCAR the possibility of enhancing the contribution that its programmes are already making to advancing leading edge science in all disciplines in the Antarctic region, from the ionosphere to the mantle and from the ice cap to the deep sea floor. SCAR hopes that IPY endeavours will focus on needs and challenges already identified by the extensive scientific community engaged in its programmes, and will build on these existing platforms.
For example, inter alia, considerable improvements are desirable in:
* integrating geophysical initiatives to improve understanding of continental tectonics, and to establish the thermal evolution of the continental crust (through the Action Group on Age, Growth & Evolution of Antarctica - AGEANT)
* studying the climate and glacial history of Antarctica through palaeoclimate and ice sheet modelling investigations, purposefully integrated with terrestrial and marine geological and geophysical evidence for past changes (through the Cenozoic Antarctic Climate Evolution (CACE) Programme)
* understanding the recent geological history of Antarctica (through the Scientific Research Programme on Antarctic Neotectonics - ANTEC);
* unifying the existing programmes on Ecology of the Sea Ice Zone (EASIZ), Regional Sensitivity to Climate Change in Antarctic Terrestrial and Limnetic Systems (RiSCC), Evolutionary Biology of Antarctic Organisms (EVOLANTA), to develop a Scientific Programme on Evolutionary Biology in Antarctica;
* creating a Marine Biodiversity Information Network to compile, disseminate, and integrate information on Antarctic marine biodiversity for scientific, monitoring, management and conservation purposes (Southern Ocean biodiversity is an important and significant component of the World marine biodiversity, since the Antarctic marine region covers 10% of the World Ocean area, and is the habitat of numerous and highly adapted species, while a large part of the Southern Ocean biodiversity remains unknown in particular in the deep sea);
* analyzing, understanding and modeling katabatic wind events (through Modelling and Observational Studies of Antarctic Katabatics - MOSAK);
* understanding the role of Antarctic Tropospheric Aerosols in Climate, making particular use of the Aerosol Optical Depth network in the Antarctic;
* understanding the relationship between Ice Sheet Mass Balance and Sea Level (ISMASS).
* understanding the evolution of lakes beneath the Antarctic ice sheet, and assessing their history and that of their biota through time.
The IPY also provides an additional means of focusing attention on key questions regarding climate variability and change in the Antarctic, like the following ones that are linked to the oceans, including:
Finally, in the context of the Cryosphere Theme, the IPY provides opportunities: to expand the critical measurements needed to validate satellite date; to ensure comprehensive observations of sea-ice (including edge position, concentration, thickness, age and snow depth on ice, the efficient exchange of these data, their use in operational services, and subsequent processing for research applications and climate studies); and to significantly enhance ice-sheet and ice-cap monitoring.
How May SCAR Contribute to Achieving the Goals of the IPY?
SCAR is a unique avenue for communication to governments through the Antarctic Treaty mechanism, thereby offering a route for additional promotion of the IPY in government circles, with the aim of attracting support and commitments for IPY goals.
SCAR also provides a direct connection to an extensive network of scientific experts in polar sciences, and to those who make decisions on policies and funding in the Antarctic sciences at the national level in 27 countries from which support for an IPY would be desirable.
SCAR's distributed network of experts has the breadth of experience and the quality to provide comprehensive and meaningful reviews of IPY proposals, and to contribute to the development of IPY plans.
SCAR can encourage the development from within its current and new programmes and activities of novel proposals for consideration within the IPY. SCAR can also offer the integration of the results of novel IPY activities into its existing programmes, thereby adding value to both the ongoing and new efforts.
SCAR can offer ready access through JCADM to the network of Antarctic databases, which should be essential for the storage and management of the data collected through IPY initiatives.
SCAR's fundamental role of and success at the coordination of Antarctic science, offers tremendous potential for strengthening IPY efforts in such a way as to ensure synergy with existing efforts, avoidance of duplication, and the filling of important gaps in knowledge and understanding.
SCAR will therefore take a leading role in providing scientific advice for the IPY process.
The IPY Planning Group, in consultation with the wider community, will develop an outline Science Plan by October 2004, which will then guide the further development of the IPY. Among other things the plan will recommend a structure to manage the process.
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